A poetry collection by poet, Terry J. England.

DIRTY Terry J. England ( Redbooth Chapbooks series http://wt62.com/rbr.htm $10.)

I met Terry England at the William Joiner's Writers Workshop at U/Mass Boston several years ago. Since then she has published with the IBBETSON STREET PRESS, SPARE CHANGE, and other publications.I was pleased to receive
her first chap, entitled: DIRTY. This collection of poetry is dedicated to her psychiatrist Dr.Ray Lawrence St. Clair, who she describes " as the best psychiatrist a girl could ever have." And indeed the poems here are in the confessional or therapeutic mode. They tell of a hardscrabble childhoood in the South, with an often absent father, sometimes abusive adults, in short, not the Ozzie and Harriet wonder years. From this less than auspicious background England has managed to infuse a wonderful mix of sensuality and innoncence in her art. In SLEEP England paints a very intimate and compelling portrait of her relationship with her mother.There is a delicate mixture of the pristine and a looming sensuality:

"My mother would rub my belly at night.
Her fingernails lightly across my ribs
up the front of my chest
circle then dipped between not yet buds
not yet conscious breasts."

In A NERVOUS CONDITION England is right-on-the-money with her portrait of an alcoholic and manipulative grandfather: " Sometimes the house rattles from the outside in./Grandpa hoots and hollers,/mumbles himself to sleep in the grass, the cat cradled next to his head./ In the morning he'll come loving up on grandma, lean his heavy body into hers,/beg forgiveness, then fix the screen." Each poem bleeds into the next, giving her collection a sense of continuity. I hope we will see more work by Ms. England.

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ Somerville, Ma./ Sept. 2002